The Cain Train Rolls On

How bad is the lame stream media?   The lame streamers think the President’s opinion of on our closest allies and the the only democracy in the Middle East is somehow private, from Ynetnews:

According to a Monday report in the French website “Arret sur Images,” after facing reporters for a G20 press conference on Thursday, the two presidents retired to a private room, to further discuss the matters of the day.

[…]

The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: “I cannot stand him. He is a liar.” According to the report, Obama replied: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”

[…]

A member of the media confirmed Monday that “there were discussions between journalists and they agreed not to publish the comments due to the sensitivity of the issue.”

He added that while it was annoying to have to refrain from publishing the information, the journalists are subject to precise rules of conduct.

Hat tip and reax, Fausta:

“Precise rules of conduct”: don’t embarrass some on vital Middle East issues, but make sure to report that Herman Cain asked a woman out to dinner and stuck someone with a bill.

More reax, Allah Pundit, Hot Air:

Here’s the original story at Arret sur Images. I’ve never heard of that site so I have no sense of how credible it is. (French readers, repondez s’il vous plait.) The idea of The One badmouthing Bibi is completely plausible, though. Remember when he allegedly humiliated Netanyahu at the White House at a meeting in 2010, and then when Netanyahu humiliated O right back with that lecture in the Oval Office back in May about Israel’s borders? There’s no love lost here, although electoral concerns (if nothing else) will keep Obama a very willing partner with Israel for the next year. Philip Klein asks a good question, though:

While the lamers bend over backwards to ignore the foreign policy gaffes of Dumbo, b/k/a Barack Obama, they are obsessed with Herman’s dating, from Ann Althouse:

This new allegation isn’t a claim of sexual harassment, but the active pursuit of relationships with women. Does it fit a pattern in the allegations? I would distinguish the allegations — reported without names and details — that involved his employees. These have to do with making the workplace different for women, a species of sex discrimination in the legal doctrine.

The incident described by Sharon Bialek, like this new one, occurred outside of the workplace, and might be construed as dating. The Bialek allegation involves aggressive groping, which is missing in this new allegation. And it involves a statement that suggests that her effort to enlist his help in finding a job depends on her sexual compliance. So the Bialek allegation has more negative elements than this new one.

While liberal white politicians get a free pass to rape and grope, the libtards remain obsessed with conservative black men’s dating. The gist of the allegation against Clarence Thomas was crude dating methods.

I’ve held off on commenting in the minutiae surrounding the Michael Jackson affair, and trial, mostly because it simply didn’t interest me.  I have kept a loose eye on it, however, enough to understand that they had his doctor on trial for the death. He’s now been convicted.

The verdict here seems to me a foregone conclusion, and that troubles me, enough to write about it,  for two reasons:

• Because it seems to me to fly in the face  of the concept of individual responsibility
• Because it seems to me this verdict is the result of wanting a pound of flesh in revenge for the death of someone who was held high in the ways of star power.

Justice is never well served when either of those points are true.

To the first point, let’s face it…. If there’s one thing we already knew,  it was that Jackson, talented or not,  was likely a vacuum cleaner for prescription drugs, not unlike Elvis Presley, years ago.  That likelihood was well confirmed in the testimony in this trial. We also knew the guy was a full-goose bozo whack job.  That seems to have been conformed as well… as if we needed such confirmation.

Does this one doctor bear full responsibility for Jackson’s death, then?  Honestly, I don’t think so. Jackson himself must bear at least part of that burden and frankly, most of it, as would any of us. You and I… the individual… are supposed to be front and center in the decision making process as regards out healthcare. (This, as an aside, is one major reason I object so strongly to government-run healthcare.)

Certainly, we can see by his whack-job behavior,  that Jackson was well beyond reason for a lot of years, but that point alone does not absolve him of his irresponsibility toward his health and the consequences of it. That irresponsibility was essentially reinforced by his star power. Let’s be honest enough to say that after the string of hits in the 80’s and early 90’s, the guy could spend an entire CD making artificial fart noises and nothing else, and his fans would be buying the things, talking about how talented he was, and that he was breaking new artistic ground, rather than simply breaking wind… and that brings me to the second point; Jackson is being held as innocent by his fans, since he was the star and could do no wrong. But someone has to pay for his death and so this gets heaped on the doctor, and hence the verdict.

Do not mistake me here. There’s no question in my mind the doctor’s more than a bit of a slimeball. But, I have more than a few doubts that justice is actually being served by this verdict and by the as yet unknown punishment attached to it.

Nor is the concept of individual responsibility being served, since in many mindless beings, the blame has successfully been shifted to the doctor and away from Jackson himself. And in the end, justice and the concept of individual responsibility are of larger import than providing a pound of flesh for Jacksons still rabid fans.

Doubtless, this post will generate hatemail. (Shrug) As usual, I couldn’t care less. But it strikes me that such rabid fandom doesn’t bode well for our culture, either.

Carteret,NJ– I’m dropping  a load of canned veggies. I’ll camp out for the night, once that’s done. It’s getting colder at night, but thank God my Auxiliary Power unit is working fine. This will be a short week for me; My wife and I got married on 11-11-89.  That makes this Friday, 11-11-11, our 22nd anniversary.  No way we’re not going to celebrate THAT one. So, I’ll be back in Rochester about mid-day on the 11th. It’ll cost me income, but it’s worth it.

• It’s the Spending, Stupid: Let’s put the demands of the socialist #OWS crowd into some real perspective, shall we?  Supposedly, the big issue with tehse morons is profits by banks.  Sorry, wrong answer. The  fact is that the total 2011 pretax profits of the entire US financial sector stands at $426B. That’s almost enough to fund the federal government for 42 days, given it’s current rate of spending.  Wanna take all those making a profit? Fine. The pretax profits of all private enterprise amounted to $1.88 trillion.  That’s enough to cover the federal government’s spending for almost 5 months.  Nod to David Burge. 
• Youth gets it: Younger people who have been hit hard by this recession say they favor less spending by a wide margin.
• But The Dems still don’t get it: Congress is currently talking about farm subsidies in the face of record crop prices. Why?
• Time for the Holder Frog-March: There’s already a grassroots campaign to get him to resign. But I want justice. I want Holder frog marched out of the White House. And let’s not forget Obama… the man directing him.
• Hey, Romney supporters: You really want Romney to run against Obama? Bachman nails it:
  

  We can’t preserve liberty if the choice is between a frugal socialist and an out of control socialist.

  Correct. That’s what you’re asking me to get behind, guys… a socialist. At the ottom line taht’s what Romney is. I won’t do it, and if you love this country you will not either.

• FIREBOMB THIS, MORONS: I’m with Reynolds on this one.
  

  French Magazine Publishes Cartoon Of Mohammed, Gets Firebombed. Here’s the cartoon. It’s important that such actions lead to the “offending” speech being seen by more people, rather than fewer. Incentives matter.

  True. And if this offends you, check the measurement of how much I care, posted below.Indeed, if we have people whose religion demands I be killed for not being a part of it, I consider it an honor to offend it’s adherents. Islam is such a religion. Do you understand?

The Playboy Bunny better known as Gloria Steinem defending B.J. Clinton:

“The truth is that even if the allegations are true, the President is not guilty of sexual harassment. He is accused of having made a gross, dumb and reckless pass at [Kathleen Willey] during a low point in her life. She pushed him away, she said, and it never happened again. In other words, President Clinton took “no” for an answer…”

Hat tip and reax, Political Jack:

So apparently.. it was okay for Clinton to give ‘er a try………and if she said “no” and he backed off and said “okay then”, it was all okey dokey.

I’m not thinking that this thing with Cain rises to even the “one free grope” status, but don’t you libs think that since your Grand Dame Gloria Steinem said a man gets one, Cain should get a pass on whatever lesser thing he did? Unless Cain’s being black takes the freebee

away…………….

Memo to Jazz Shaw, grow a pair, Hot Air:

I will say right up front that I’ve been disappointed in not only Cain’s supporters, but the candidate himself, for taking a path which certainly does fit the profile of “playing the race card” in the recent sexual harassment stories. Conservatives, after years of being accused by -some – liberals of harboring sub-textual racism when they criticize Obama’s policies, now find themselves leveling similar accusations at Cain’s detractors. It should be enough for us to let the charges be heard and stand or fall on their own merit, or lack thereof. If real wrongdoing is discovered, the candidate will take the hit. If not, he survives what turns out to be a largely political assault.

Herman is not the one who raised the bar on sexual harassment. That was the liberals in their blind defense of B.J. Clinton. Well it is the Twenty First Century and long past time for having one set of sexual standards for liberal white politicians, and another for conservative blacks.

Eric adds:

David is quite correct.

Trust me on this, gang, sex isn’t the issue. The Clintonistas proved that. When they turn up the volume that loud, particularly when the case by any objective measure, is so very weak, their objection is other than the stated.

Jazz, I’m disappointed in you.

You really need to look at this a bit more objectively.  The desperation on the part of the left…. (And I include the establishment GOP in that assessment which would seem to include their house organ, The Politico.) ….is in fact, their survival, and they’re looking around for anything that will float them.   Again, I point to Limbaugh, who for a change has this one spot on:

We cannot have a black Republican running for the office of president. We can’t have one elected. We can’t have an Hispanic.

Rush Limbaugh

The left owns those two groups, and those two groups are gonna forever be minorities. Those groups cannot ever be seen to be self-sufficient or rising above, on their own. Those two groups are owned — lock, stock, and barrel — by the Democrat Party and anything good that happens to any black or Hispanic in American politics can only happen via the Democrat Party. “If it happens elsewhere, we’re gonna destroy those people — a la Clarence Thomas.”
…

You think I’m wrong about this? Jackie Robinson in the 1960s was denounced. Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, was denounced as an “Uncle Tom” because he supported Republicans in the 1960s. Jackie Robinson. The left, the Democrat Party of the day called Jackie Robinson an Uncle Tom.

This factor Limbaugh points at is the only logical explanation for the frenzy surrounding this thing. The left and the establishment GOP are both downright desperate to clamp down on any real conservative… and particularly, in the case of the left, a conservative who is also a minority.

In the case of the establishment GOP, their narrative cannot withstand a real conservative. Theyd rather offer up Bush and McCain clones. And remember, the establishment GOP was none too excited about Reagan, either. Remember the 1976 primary, people.

Nor, the can left deal with a  real conservative, particularly one from one of the groups Dems pander to. Women for example. .. Witness both their reax to Bachman, Palin. Has anyone seen a collection of anti-woman smears more hateful than what the Dems have come up with against these?  And the establishment GOP who has the same hate for real conservatives as the Democrats, plays along.

Perry, too. The attacks on him have been fairly similar. The man is more conservative than the  establishment GOP or the left wants.

Then along comes Cain, who also gets piled on like the rest, but because the left particularly cannot deal with a black conservative, because their narrative is particularly hurt by a successful black conservative, the smears take on an urgency seldom seen even in recent years. The reason is simple. The meme for years now has been that the only reason we’re against Obama is that he’s black. Along comes Cain, like Clarence Thomas before him and blows that meme out of the water.

Think about it; What happens when Cain gets in and his policies gain support and succeed?

• It’s hard to charge the GOP with racism.
• It’s hard to say that Obama’s policies failed because white people wouldn’t support a black guy.
• It’s harder still not to admit that Obama’s policies failed because they were the wrong way to go.

What troubles me is that so many of the GOP are willing to play along with the leftist Dems on this.

-E

The media frenzy about trying lynch a black man in one graph:

Hat tips:  Newsbusters, and Lonely Conservative.

This is what racism looks like The media will condone rape by a iberal white politician but dare a black man stray off the plantation.

Addendum: The Pundit of Poco, b/k/a Don Surber puts some flesh on the numbers, from Daily Mail:

Now a Washington Post/ABC News poll taken from Monday to Thursday after Politico reported on a sexual harassment lawsuit shows Republican support for Herman Cain is up 6 from the previous poll a month ago.

All that oppo research may be for naught as 3 out of 4 Republicans said they could not care less about the nearly 15-year-old news.

To put the settlement in perspective, Bill Clinton settled up with Paula Jones for every penny she asked for — $850,000, or more than 17 times this settlement.

The media hit job is not working.

An armed society is a polite society, and a safe one, from Loa Angeles Times:

“I want you to get a concealed weapons permit,” Sheriff Chuck Wright said at the Monday news conference, as reported by TV station WYFF. “Don’t get Mace. Get a firearm.”

The sheriff alleged that a 46-year-old man named Walter Lance abducted a woman while she was walking her dog Sunday afternoon and attempted to rape her.

Lance was arrested and charged with kidnapping, first-degree criminal sexual conduct and grand larceny, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal reported.

In the news conference, Wright said Lance had been convicted of 20 crimes dating back to 1983, including disorderly conduct, domestic violence, assault and battery with intent to kill, and resisting arrest, among others.

If the state of South Carolina will not protect their women, give the women the power to defend themselves.   It appears, nobody else will.

Roterdam,NY– I’m here dropping off a load of walnuts, that I brought up from Jersey. Nothing overly special to report… except that it’s been a bust few days so far. I may have something special to talk about tonight, however.

• Now the Slur Machine gets warmed up against Cain: Over at OTB, they’re playing the tune the Democrats and the GOP Castrati love to sing:
  

  After initial responses from his staff that were fairly close to being incompetently disastrous, Herman Cain spent most of his day in Washington today responding to the allegations raised by the story posted by Politico last night regarding sexual harassment allegations made against him 20 years ago:

  Herman Cain emphatically denied on Monday that he had ever sexually harassed anyone, calling allegations of harassment by two former employees “totally baseless and totally false” and saying that he is the innocent victim of a “witch hunt.”

  With the allegations threatening his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Cain acknowledged in an interview with Fox News Channel the harassment charges during his tenure as head of the National Restaurant Association. He said he had been “falsely accused.”

  Later Monday, during an appearance at the National Press Club, Cain said that “in all of my over 40 years of business experience — running businesses and corporations — I have never sexually harassed anyone.”

  “I was falsely accused of sexual harassment, and when the charges were brought, as the leader of the organization, I recused myself and allowed my general counsel and my human resource officer to deal with the situation, and it was concluded after a thorough investigation that it had no basis,” Cain said.

  Politico reported Sunday night that Cain had sexually harassed two women while he ran the trade association during the 1990s and that the women were given financial settlements and left the association.

  Cain said that he was “unaware of any sort of settlement. I hope it wasn’t for much, because I didn’t do anything.”

  Cain suggested that the report was the product of a “witch hunt” spurred by his recent surge in the polls in the GOP presidential contest.

  “This bull’s-eye on my back has gotten bigger. We have no idea the source of this witch hunt, which is really what it is,” Cain said during a question-and-answer session following a 25-minute campaign speech before the National Press Club in downtown Washington. Cain’s comments were broadcast live on national cable television news networks.

  In the morning Fox interview, Cain defended his integrity and suggested someone was putting a “cloud” over his campaign.

  “It is totally baseless and totally false,” Cain added. “Never have I committed any sort of sexual harassment.”

  Cain said there were no additional harassment allegations. Should any surface, Cain said, they would be “trumped-up allegations,” adding: “I assure you people will simply make them up.”

  …

  A normally leftist commenter there says:

  I don’t wish to diminish the seriousness of sexual harassment, but there’s a credible argument that Rick Perry let an innocent man be executed in Texas and then obstructed an investigation into the matter. There’s a credible argument that at least a few members of the previous administration qualify as war criminals. THAT never caused 1/10th the media fury that these allegations Herman Cain may have behaved somewhat inappropriately in the workplace 20 years ago. Is the Beltway media so, pardon the expression, pussy whipped that they react to sexual harassment charges like they’re the equivalent of crimes against humanity?

  Look, the business with Perry is pure bovine feces, but beyond that, he’s got a point. I tell him:

  That depends on the target, if we take history as our guide.
  If the target is a threat to the Democrats, of course they’ll react that way. Say, a Herman Cain, or a Clarence Thomas. No smear is too low.

  If on the other hand we’re dealing with a President, say Bubba “Better put some ice on that” Clinton…. you’ll never see that kind of screaming, until someone figures out that keeping them in office will cost the liberal mantra more than removing them. In Bubba’s case, it cost less to cast Paula Jones as trailer park trash.

  Take Anthony Weiner, on the other hand, as an example of one who got too costly to keep in office. And watch the progression from overt defense to overt disconnection from the party, in that case as the cost of keeping him in office became too great.
  John Edwards to a lesser degree.

  IN any event, let be clear about the motivations, here. The Democrats are in a full panic, knowing they stand on the very edge of losing the WH and both houses of Congress. As such, they’re flailing around for anything that will keep them afloat Given those conditions nobody should be suprised at the intensity of the liberal press and their wailing over this.

  Think I’m kidding? Ask yourself; Had someone made that kind of slur on Obama, wouldn’t we be hearing about such attacks were racist? Wouldn’t the press and the leftie blogs be on an all out search and destroy mission against anyone who treated such charges as factual?

  The unspoken part of this, at least in this exchange, is the idea of a black conservative and how destructive such a person could be to the leftist ideal. Limbaugh brushed up against this, yesterday:

  This story appears to me to be a close relative of the hit job that the Washington Post is doing on Marco Rubio. It’s not a news story. This is gutter partisan politics, and it’s the politics of minority conservative personal destruction, is what you’ve got here. Rubio and Cain unfit to lead, don’t you see. We cannot have a black Republican running for the office of president. We can’t have one elected. We can’t have an Hispanic.

  The left owns those two groups, and those two groups are gonna forever be minorities. Those groups cannot ever be seen to be self-sufficient or rising above, on their own. Those two groups are owned — lock, stock, and barrel — by the Democrat Party and anything good that happens to any black or Hispanic in American politics can only happen via the Democrat Party. “If it happens elsewhere, we’re gonna destroy those people — a la Clarence Thomas.”
  …

  You think I’m wrong about this? Jackie Robinson in the 1960s was denounced. Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, was denounced as an “Uncle Tom” because he supported Republicans in the 1960s. Jackie Robinson. The left, the Democrat Party of the day called Jackie Robinson an Uncle Tom. Throughout the history of this program people have called and asked me, “Why do Republicans do X?” or, “Why don’t Republicans do Y?” This is your answer: The Republican Party is scared to death of the mainstream media. They are deathly afraid of it. Herman Cain was not. Herman Cain exhibited no fear of the mainstream media. Herman Cain, on the campaign trail, is saying what he believes; proposing what he’s proposing.

  This is how the mainstream media keeps the Republican Party in check: They’re scared to death of this kind of thing happening to them. Pure and simple. It’s also why (I’m just predicting) you’re not going to see too many people in the official Republican establishment rise up to Herman Cain’s defense. You know, if this exact circumstance (as I just mentioned) had happened in a conservative publication, not only would the Democrats and the media be going after the women — as James Carville did and others during the Clinton years — they’d be going after the reporters. They’d be going after the publication. Anybody who had anything to do with the story, it would be search-and-destroy. Our side will not do that. Herman Cain stood up to the media, he did not act afraid, and so he had to be slapped down. Is it coincidental this all happened at night before his address to the National Press Club?

  Well, exactly. But I’m also going to suggest a possibility; Did this whole meme,come from one of the Romney Castrati? Wouldn’t shock me at all.

  But look, what do we have here, in the end? A 20 year old case, with no names, Unspecific charges, from second hand sources. A classic hit piece. The outstanding question is why anyone takes Politico seriously, anymore. Reynolds says it well:

  And I continue to ask: Would Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman, Anna Palmer and Kenneth Vogel have put their names on a similar piece, with no named sources, aimed at Barack Obama? Would Politico have run it? And how will people respond — will people respond? — to the next big “scoop” from Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman, Anna Palmer and Kenneth Vogel? Or from Politico?

• Liberal non-thought, applied, and the result: What happens when you apply liberal philosophy to a bank? No more bank. Jon Corzine figures very large here. Millions have gone missing in all this mess and the investigation has started. But of course a prominent Democrat is involved… and a Democrat runs the White House…. so the investigation won’t go far… but the missing money will turn up in DNC warchests without anyone knowing, I bet.
• Our current financial crisis: Clinton’s doing.  Here’s the proof.
• Who supports Occupy Wall Street? These morons. Every single one of them wants to destroy America.

Geraldo Rivera wastes no time in labeling Politico’s charges against the Herminator,b/k/a Herman Cain as sexual harassment. video:

Hat tip video: Jill Pundit & Pundette.

Two little problems for Gerry, one the complainer never characterized her charge as sexual harassment, and two the actual facts do not substantiate Rivera’s wild charges, from Washington Examiner, via Karen, Lonely Conservative:

Van Susteren asked what Cain did that led to the accusation. There were reportedly more than one accusations in the complaint, but Cain said he recalled just one incident. “She was in my office one day, and I made a gesture saying — and I was standing close to her — and I made a gesture saying you are the same height as my wife. And I brought my hand up to my chin saying, ‘My wife comes up to my chin.'” At that point, Cain gestured with his flattened palm near his chin. “And that was put in there [the complaint] as something that made her uncomfortable,” Cain said, “something that was in the sexual harassment charge.”

The nice thing about classic economics, is the rules do not change between markets.   It the same law of supply and demand that applies to widget, automobiles and college educations.

So speaking of  cars, aside from OWS morons, nobody would argue that all cars are the have the same uses, and should carry the same price tags.   Further, we are smart enough to hold Detroit responsible for the vehicles they sell.    If we demanded that Detroit sell are vehicles for the same price, but  not be required to back only vehicle they sold, the only cars on the markets would be lemons.

Yet while nobody wants a steel, chrome and rubber lemon with air conditioning and power windows, they a big demand for parchment lemons, from Glenn Harlan Reynolds, New York Post:

I think we should return to the days when student loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy, starting five years after graduation. This will allow graduates who are unable to pay to get out from under what is otherwise a potential lifetime of debt-slavery. If you buy a house to flip, and wind up losing your shirt, we let you go bankrupt, take a credit-rating hit, and scrub the debt away. Why should graduates be forbidden from doing the same? The five-year delay means that you can’t use immediate post-graduation poverty as an excuse (as some medical students used to do), but still provides an out.

But the real incentive-alignment part is this: Put the institutions who issued the degrees on the hook for the money they received. Making them eat the entire loan balance would probably bankrupt a lot of colleges (though that should tell us something about the problem right there), but sticking them with even a small fraction — say, 10% or 15% — would be enough to inspire a much greater degree of concern for how much debt students take on while in school, and for how likely they are to find gainful employment after graduation.

Because auto companies and dealers are required to stand behind their products, few car buyers get stuck with lemon.    Because institutes of higher education are not required to stand behind their productes, purchasers college education, get stuch with lots of lemons.

The Organize  Wall Street socialist rabble has achieved nirvana, a world without rape,  from the New York Post, via Sister Toldjah:

Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park battened down the hatches yesterday as the early October snow turned their tents into igloos, but the close quarters also made easy pickings for one predator.

A sex fiend barged into a woman’s tent and sexually assaulted her at around 6 a.m., said protesters, who chased him from the park.

“Pervert! Pervert! Get the f-k out!” said vigilante Occupiers, who never bothered to call the cops.
“They were shining flashlights in his face and yelling at him to leave,” said a woman who called herself Leslie, but refused to give her real name.

She said that weeks earlier another woman was raped.

“We don’t tell anyone,” she said. “We handle it internally. I said too much already.”

Despite what the good Sister may believe, if you adhere to OWS logic, this not rape, video via Robert Stacy McCain, Other McCain:

If there is no individual free will, but rather only collective liberty, then there is no need for the  passe concept as individual consent. The sexual organs of the collective only exist to serve the sexual needs of the collective.

Some may equate social change over time to improvement.   Alas, if social change over time always meant improvement, this post would be written in Latin.    As for OWS, they seem to be on the road back to the stone age.

Taken from7:10, 28 October Memeorandum:

From Natasha Vargas-Cooper,  The Night Occupy Los Angeles Tore Itself In Two.

Indian Castle, NY– I’m along the New York State Thruway, headed home for the weekend, by way of a short stop at Geneva, NY.

Your intrepid blogger and his mighty steed. (Did I really say that?)

We had some ice and snow around here last night, which slowed my progress something terrible, so I didn’t make it home as planned. But, since I wasn’t scheduled for anything after this anyway, I wasn’t too worried. I’ll get to Geneva around 630pm, and from there to the yard, and the arms of my loving wife, who will be waiting for me. We’re supposed to get more snow, too.  Nature seems to agree, we’ve got a big one coming. I’m noticing bigger seagulls than usual… the big lake birds, not the usual winged rats you see hanging around shopping malls and such… never a good sign, in terms of oncoming weather. Oh, well, at least I’ll be home.

The truck is running well, with the exception of a broken belt in my right steer tire. Anything over 50mph and this poor truck becomes a rather large paint shaker. I’m told I’ll be getting new tires.

I’m also told that I’ll be getting a  Bully Dog Power-adder as an experiment. With fuel prices as they are (Thank you, hope and change) you can imagine that we’re doing what we can to hold the line on those costs. The Bully dog will add perhaps 500ftlbs of torque and around 75hp , while getting 20% better MPG. Yes, it sounds too good to be true, but I’ve seen these things work on smaller trucks and been very impressed.. Personally, I can’t wait to try it. And yes, they’re expensive… around $2800. Then again, with a tank of fuel costing around $1200, it doesn’t take long to see such investments paying off.

Let’s have a look around, hmm?

• The Debates: I’ve said for a long while, now, that the debates we see are little more than scripted sessions. I’ve also admitted Romney can follow a script better than most.  But I’m afraid that’s no measure of a president.  It’s thereby I suggest we take the results of the debates with some salt. Let’s remember, gang, that the results are filtered through the eyes of the punditry, who will tend to downplay any candidate who is not a Democrat or a member of the GOP Castratti. Such are all about Pushing Romney. Until he gets nominated, of course. What we have with Romney is McCain v2.0, but they’ll never say that. Yet. But now, Herman Cain is within striking distance, and the trends are good for him. That said, 9-9-9 isn’t going over so large as Perry’s Flat Tax.  I like the idea of 9-9-9, but only if the 14th amendment is repealed.
• Droid:  Samsung has overtaken the I-Phone as the phone of choice, as measured by sales. I”m moving to a droid myself, soon, instead of the Apple product. Why? Simple; I’m not happy about having to go through I-tunes for everything.  The droid to my way of thinking is by far more powerful, flexible and cheaper. Why should I care about anything other than that?
• Snark of the week: From Dennis Miller:
  

  Chaz Bono is already bitching about being voted off “Dancing with the Stars.” Hey, Chaz — man up.

  LOL! Of course, look, the whole cast reminds one of the denizens of the Island of Misfit toys, anyway. Sheesh. What people will watch…

I’m off till Sunday night. My usual carlisle, PA run then who knows?

The riot police are apparently in San Francisco now, ready to evict the Occupier dregs. Livestream here.

The Oakland occupiers have just voted to go on a “general strike.”

I’m confused. Aimless, unemployed Kamp Alinsky Kids are going to walk off jobs…they don’t have?

Whaaaaht?

From Michelle.

I can just  hear the first words of President Cain, “Our long national temper tantrum is over.”   The OWS  campers need to grow up, clean-up and shut up.

I am not sure if this is a brilliant strategy on the part of  Mayor Dumbberg and his crew, or the inevitable, that you get what you incent, from Rebecca Rosenberg et al, New York Post:

Rikers cons flood Zuccotti for free eats

Newly sprung ex-cons and vagrants rousted from other parks are crashing the Occupy Wall Street protest, where gourmet meals are free and boozy, drug­fueled parties are on tap, the movement’s leaders griped yesterday.

“They’re telling people who leave prison to go to Zuccotti Park,” lamented Daniel Zetah, a leader of the OWS community-relations group

Some of the excesses of "Occupy Wall Street" leaking out

The OWS’ gang seemed at least temporarily flummoxed by Da Mayor’s apparent  strategy.  I sure is will take something more than a mind numbing OWS general assembly to find a counter.

Snidely, it does seems that the OWS crowd was all for redistribution when they were the redistributees,  not for being the redistributers.     Give away free food, and you are certain to attract those who  like to get on the house.    Of course, eating the OWS food is more  sanitary than what OWS does to New York City police cars.    Is the OWS crowd going to try and evict the interlopers from a quasi-public park?

Ridgefield, NJ– I’m at the Vince Lombardi rest area for a rest break. I’ll be going into the city shortly after midnight.

• But what are they, really? and what are they fighting for?: OK, like a lot of you, I too am getting to the point where I have a little “occupy” boredom. I’m bored with it.  Now, the press seems enamoured with them, but they tend to like anything that tilts left.  Here’s what the press thinks of “Occupy Wall Street”.. and for the purpose of reference, what they think of the supposed counterpart of “Occupy”… the Tea Party.  But what are they? Why are they there, really? Seems to me that like McKay in the movie “The Candidate” that I mentioned the other day, it’s a movement in search of a cause. Let’s ponder, for a moment, though just what a lot of them have been mouthing, and why they’re there. They clearly want to shut our financial engine down. Well, isn’t that what the 9/11 crowd wanted?
  

  Not all that different in their goals.

  The bozos who flew the planes into the WTC towers, ironically not so distant from Zuccotti park, I mean.And perhaps that comparison will anger some. So be it, I really don’t care, because the truth is that those rich liberal sending these useful idiots out into the cold to live in the legendary kind of filth we’ve see reports of, Rich liberal types like Soros, for example… destroying our economic system is exactly what they’re all about. The difference between them is, that the 9/11 pilots knew what they wanted. I remain unconvinced that the morons in the park have a clue what they want. But I find it striking that they’re working toward the same end. Let’s remember, China has made clear it’s approval of “Occupy” as well as Iran. Cuba. Argentina. Etc. Getting the picture?

• Want another clue on “Occupy?”  I wonder how many of those morons are aware of the number of currently prominent Wall Street types are both very dirty indeed, and big Obama donors?
•  Homeland Security Adviser  Leaks Intel to Attack Rick Perry:  Yeah, they’ve lost their friggin minds. It means more to them to defeat a conservative than it is keeping the country secure.